Hopeless Place

Chapter 10

She was forced to wait for another 3 weeks before she got the chance. The day she had spoken with Guille she had contacted the rehad center to request a meeting with Juliana but the news that came shocked her to her core. As it turned out her having left the girl had done more damage than she could have imagined.

Juliana had been forced to stay in her room after having tried to take her own life. She had been standing on the roof when Mike had discovered her. She had kept shouting that nothing mattered anymore and her life was ruined. That she was a terrible person and didn't deserve to feel better.

And then she had dropped down from the edge.

Mike had quickly grabbed her wrist and pulled up the crying Juliana. For the time being the young girl was not allowed to leave her room and was under strict supervision.

When Valentina heard all of this she felt her heart break, tears formed in her eyes and she hated herself. Hated herself for causing so much pain in the girl's life. Juliana hadn't deserved this. Most of all she wanted to drive to the center and tell Juliana everything she felt. But she wasn't allowed. No one was allowed to see the girl. Valentina was certain that keeping her away from Juliana was only doing more harm and after 3 days she had showed up unannounced. The kind woman behind the desk recognized her but still couldn't let her pass. After waiting for nearly 4 hours, Valentina had given up and had gone back home.

It had been this morning, after 3 weeks of waiting, that the center had contacted her. In fact it had been the kind woman behind the desk that had called Valentina at 7:30 in the morning with the news that Juliana was doing a lot better and was allowed visitors again. Valentina hadn't wasted a single second and had driven up to the center as fast as she could. At 7:58 she had arrived at the boring building. At 8:04 they had escorted her to the cafeteria where she would be able to meet Juliana. But since then nothing happened anymore.

Valentina's fingers tapped the table in an annoying and frantic rythm. Her eyes shifted between the clock on the wall and the door. Minutes passed by as if in slow motion. She wished she knew what was happening behind the closed door leading to the rest of the building. She wished she knew what Juliana was feeling, thinking, maybe even saying. Most of all she wished the girl would just enter. So that finally after all this time Valentina could give the speech she had rewritten over and over and over again. It was then she realized she had forgotten the letter she had written and would have to improvise the speech. That was if Juliana wanted to see her, which seemed more and more unlikely as the minutes passed by.

Behind the closed door stood Juliana. She stood there not sure what to do. Whether she should enter and confront whatever Valentina would tell her or run away and hide. Her therapist had said seeing Valentina would be good for her but while she was standing here she didn't know. When they got her out of her first session of the day because someone was here to see her she had been confused as to who would visit. When they had spoken Valentina's name she had been scared of the confrontation ahead. At night, in her dreams, she had the security of meeting Valentina again and being forgiven for the lies she had told. Now all she could think off was what would happen if she wasn't forgiven. What would seh do if Valentina told her she never wanted to see her again? But then again why would the girl have come this whole way if she didn't want to speak to her anymore? Unless it was for closer. Or maybe Valentina had heard about what she had done all those weeks ago and wanted to tell her to stop being pathetic.

For some reason it seemed more plausible to her that Valentina had come here to tell her off than to forgive her. She turned away from the door to walk away. Today was not the day she could deal with this. She wasn't ready for that dream to be crushed by the reality of the situation.

The clock striked 9. Nearly an hour had passed. Valentina got up out of her chair. This was useless, Juliana would never forgive her for how she had left things. All she could do now was respect the girl's decision and leave her alone. Even if that felt like a mistake, even if she had so much to say, she couldn't do this to Juliana.